Hello Mr. Hayes:

Upon visiting your web site today, I noticed that the gladiolus is still giving you much to lament. In our previous correspondence you reminded me of my first encounter with the glad as funereal. Although I am a native Californian, the significant portion of my youth was spent in NW Washington, D.C. While in high school, I worked a vast floor of growers bunches, pulling bunches for the designers & customers alike, managing the international teleflora accounts on the weekends and generally interning under the owner who was aware of my entrepreneurial aspirations. One afternoon, a charming elderly woman was preparing a bouquet and needed assistance managing both the weight of her selections and the vast array of color present before her. She wanted height, so I, of course, offered the glad. She looked at me in amazement and stated that her friend wasn't dead. This had been obvious from our conversation so, in an effort to remain polite, I put the glads back and moved away from the insulting flowers.

Upon inquiring with the designers, I was told that the glad had long been known as a flower of sympathy, although the designers conveyed that the floral industry itself had promoted this belief due to the flowers multi-season availability and relatively low price point, making it suitable for the unpredictability of the occasion and the need for so many flowers in a funeral display.

This was almost two decades ago and I must admit that when I received glads I did have to laugh--perhaps, I was wanted dead. Yet, this seems to be a residual bias from my industry experience. In San Diego, particularly at the multitude of farmer's markets, glads move swiftly. In part from curiosity, in part from a desire to reflect on an industry other than telecom, I began to observe the buying pattern at our local farmer's markets. Glads retail for $4.50 to $6.00 per bunch of 5 stems (occasionally they are in bunches of 10, retailing at no greater than a $1 per stem) and they are given the greatest share of floor/bucket space (with the exception of the dedicated gerbera space from a grower in Cardiff-by-the-Sea--10 stems for $6). Unlike yours, these glads have no more than 5 days left on their bloom, and the number of flowers per stem does not compare. I would imagine that the farmer's markets are moving the equivalent of seconds, although the flowers are still beautiful and pleasure in the home.

As I strolled past the local teleflora outlet on my way for coffee this foggy morning, their shop was a buzz with activity--at least 20 modern banquet-table centerpieces featuring rose colored glads were under construction. Which leads me to my conclusion, glads may be funereal to the design and floral industry, but perhaps, not so to the general consumer.

Or, perhaps, like the East Coast horror at seeing white after Labor Day, their application is a regional phenomenon.

Were I attempting to move glads in today's market I would sell the following features:

1. Very few flowers will provide the height and depth that a vase of glads offers, making them ideal for low display/coffee tables (the favored height of the ever popular Ikea line of tables present in their vignettes or the Max Studio floor display tables), wrap desks (the newly revamped cosmetics bays at Nordstrom or the center wrap bays at, say, Saks) and mezzanine displays (pick a hotel, any hotel).

2. As interior design, particularly in public spaces, moves from traditional to modern concepts (see, for example, The Wall Street Journal, 8/30/01, B1, "Out: Chandeliers. In: Wacky Chairs.") The gladiolus, like the pricier orchid, can work alone in a display, providing clean lines and a wide color palette that works with even the most contemporary of art and pattern.

Thanks for the fun. Adios from San Diego.

T. Thompson

P.S.-My clients have called and asked, "Who did you use when you sent us flowers? I need to send flowers to a client." Your products are extremely well received, although adding a please recycle quip on your packaging would please these crazy Californians.

Mark's Notes on Glads